Research & Publications

My research studies manufacturing, service and supply chain operations, both from a strategic and a tactical perspective:

  1. Operations strategy involves structuring resources and processes such that their resulting capabilities maximize value. This includes deciding on capacity investment; network design, appropriate type and amount of flexibility, risk mitigation and operational hedging; incentives, pricing, contracting, and coordination in supply chains.
  2. Operations management involves managing execution (dynamic control) and performance evaluation of processing networks.

Books

  1. Managing Business Process Flows: Principles of Operations Management. With Ravi Anupindi, Sunil Chopra, Sudhakar Deshmukh, and Eitan Zemel. Prentice Hall. 2nd edition, 2006.
  2. Operations Strategy: Principles and Practice. Dynamic Ideas. 2008.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications

  1. Straight Line Extraction using Iterative Total Least Squares Methods. With Hadar Avi-Itzhak and Roger Melen J. of Visual Communication and Image Representation, 6(1) 59-68, 1995.  An abridged conference version appeared earlier, titled Estimation of Linear Stroke Parameters using Iterative Total Least Squares Methods. With Hadar Avi-Itzhak and Roger Melen SPIE Proceedings, 1661, 92-97, Feb. 1992.
  2. Subclass Pattern Recognition: A Maximin Correlation Approach. With Hadar Avi-Itzhak and Leo Rub. IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI). 17(4) 418-431, 1995.
  3. Brownian Models of Closed Queueing Networks: Explicit Solutions for Balanced Three-Station Systems. With Elizabeth Schwerer The Annals of Applied Probability , 4(2) 448-477, 1994.
  4. Dynamic Scheduling with Convex Delay Costs: The Generalized cm Rule. The Annals of Applied Probability, 5(3) 808-833, 1995.
  5. Multi-factor Dynamic Investment Under Uncertainty. With Janice C. Eberly. Journal of Economic Theory, 75(8) 345-387, 1997.
  6. Dynamic Control of Brownian Networks: State Space Collapse and Equivalent Workload Formulations . With J. Michael Harrison. The Annals of Applied Probability. 7(3) 747-771, 1997.
  7. Investment Strategies for Flexible Resources. Management Science, 44(8) 1071-1078, 1998. Comprehensive technical report version of Nov. 10, 1997. (Hardcopy available from The Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science at Northwestern University.)
  8. Multi-Resource Investment Strategies: Operational Hedging under Demand Uncertainty. With J. Michael Harrison. European Journal of Operational Research 113(1)17-29, February 16, 1999. [I wrote a teaching case accompanying this article: Seagate Technologies: Operational Hedging] This article received the Citation of Excellence from ANBAR Electronic Intelligence.
  9. Coordinating Investment, Production and Subcontracting. Management Science, 45(7) 954-971, July 1999. Comprehensive technical report version with Appendix and proofs of Nov. 10, 1998. (Hardcopy available from The Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science at Northwestern University.)
  10. Price versus Production Postponement: Capacity and Competition. With Maqbool Dada.  Management Science, 45(12) 1631-1649, December 1999. Appendix and proofs of Aug. 27, 1998. (Hardcopy available from The Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science at Northwestern University.)
  11. Which e-business is right for your supply chain?  (Manuscript Version April 26, 2000) With Sunil Chopra.  Supply Chain Management Review., 4 (3) 32-40, July/August 2000.
  12. Price and Service Discrimination in Queueing Systems: Incentive-Compatibility of Gcm Scheduling. Management Science, 46(9)1249-1267, Sept. 2000.
  13. Price-coupled Scheduling for Differentiated Services: Gcm vs. GPS. With Piet Van Mieghem. Int'l Journal of Communication Systems, 15(5)429-452, June 2002. PDF of accepted paper (0.4MB)
  14. Newsvendor Networks: Inventory Management and Capacity Investment with Discretionary Activities. With Nils Rudi. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 4(4)313-335, Fall 2002. Long version of technical report.
  15. Due Date Scheduling: Asymptotic Optimality of Generalized Longest Queue and Generalized Largest Delay Rules. Operations Research, 51(1)113-122, Jan/Feb 2003.
  16. Capacity Management, Investment and Hedging: Review and Recent Developments. Invited paper by Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 5(4)269-302, Fall 2003.
  17. Note: Commonality Strategies: Value Drivers and Equivalence with Flexible Capacity and Inventory Substitution. Management Science, 50(3)419-424, March 2004.
  18. Strategically Seeking Service: How Competition Can Generate Poisson Arrivals. With Marty Lariviere. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 6(1)23-40, Winter 2004. This paper was awarded the 1st MSOM Best Paper Award in 2007. (Each year the journal selects one paper, published in one of the prior three volumes of M&SOM, as most deserving for its contribution to the theory and practice of operations management. )
  19. Queueing Systems with Leadtime Constraints: A Fluid-Model Approach for Admission and Sequencing Control.  With Costis Maglaras. European Journal of Operational Research, 167(2005)179-207.
  20. Seagate-Quantum: Encroachment Strategies. With Glenn Schmidt. Informs Transactions on Education, 5(2), January 2005.
  21. Risk Mitigation in Newsvendor Networks: Resource Diversification, Flexibility, Sharing, and Hedging. Management Science, 53(8)1269-1288, August 2007. On-line E-companion.
  22. Multi-Market Facility Network Design with Offshoring Applications. (On-line Appendix) With Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu (Oct 10, 2005; Oct 16, 2006; Jun. 8, 2007; Oct 22, 2007)  To appear in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management. This paper won the second place in the 2007 Student Paper Competition sponsored by the College of Supply Chain Management of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS).
  23. Incentives for Quality through Endogenous Routing. (On-line Appendix) With Lauren Xiaoyuan Lu and R. Canan Savaskan. (July 14, 2006, Revised Jan 5, 2007; Sep 26, 2007; Dec 24, 2007) To appear in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.
  24. Voting with your Pocket Book: A stochastic model of consumer boycotts. With Daniel Diermeier. Mathematical and Computer Modeling 48(2008)1497-1509.
  25. Coordination and Turnout in Large Elections.  With Daniel Diermeier. Mathematical and Computer Modeling 48(2008)1478-1496.
  26. The Value of Partial Resource Pooling: Should a service network be integrated or Product-focused?. With Baris Ata. (January 18, 2005, Revised March 6, 2007, March 27. 2008) To appear in Management Science.

[According to INFORMS publication rules: "Upon request, authors may receive a PDF file of the final published version of their paper after publication for posting on their personal websites."]

Papers under Review

  1. Mix, Time, and Volume Flexibility: Valuation and Corporate Diversification. (Formerly: Valuing Flexibility as a Wait-and-Switch Option) With Jiri Chod and Nils Rudi. (Oct 10, 2007)
  2. Operational Flexibility and Financial Hedging: Complements or Substitutes? With Jiri Chod and Nils Rudi. (Sep 22, 2006; Nov 07, 2007)
  3. A Little Flexibility is All You Need: Optimality of Tailored Chaining and Pairing With Achal Bassamboo and Ramandeep S. Randhawa. (Apr 16, 2008)
  4. Global Dual Sourcing: Tailored Base Surge Allocation to Near and Offshore Production With Gad Allon (Sep 25, 2008)
  
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Last Updated by Jan A. Van Mieghem Sep 29, 2008.